Fotoreproductie van een foto door J. Craig Annau, voorstellend een kade in Venetië before 1907

This photograph of a Venice dockside, by an anonymous photographer, shows a photo of a scene reproduced in a book. It's a study in contrasts, light and dark, absence and presence. What strikes me is the texture, the grainy quality of the image within the book. The photographer focuses on the monk-like figure in the foreground. The whole image has an almost palpable sense of depth, and yet it's flattened by the way the image is printed in the book and presented to us. Look at the upper section of the image within the photograph. It's a beautiful passage, where the buildings in the background are turned into a series of shimmering grey tones. You can almost feel the heat rising off the buildings. This photograph reminds me of the work of Gerhard Richter, who also explored the relationship between photography and painting, often blurring the lines between the two. Like Richter, this photographer seems to be interested in the way that images can be both representational and abstract, concrete and ethereal.